Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“You don’t understand,” I tell her. “That’s not…that’s not what…”
But that’s when I know.
She’s telling the truth.
I cry out, anger taking hold of me now, rage and shame, so much shame.
“No,” I whisper.
Bellamy killed my parents. I know he did. He killed my parents and then pretended to be my family. He turned me into a monster. He turned so many of us into monsters, just ready to do their bidding.
“How does that feel, to give your whole life to an organization that used you from the very start?” Her eyes grow mean again. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it, because had I not found out about you, you would have killed Valtu. You would have killed him and not even asked them why.”
“No, no, I love him,” I sob. “I love him. I wasn’t going to do it. I only found out last night who I was, that I’ve loved him for all these lives—”
“You can drop the act,” she snaps at me, pressing her arm harder.
“The fuck?” Valtu’s voice booms behind us and I see him and Solon come inside the kitchen.
“What the fuck are you doing Lenore?” Solon exclaims and in a second he’s right beside us, pulling her off of me.
I keel over, hand on my windpipe, trying to breathe.
“What the hell just happened?” Valtu asks. He places his hand on my back. “What is wrong with you?” he growls at Lenore.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” She doesn’t struggle against Solon’s grip. “Why don’t you ask her?” she snipes.
I feel Valtu’s eyes on me. “Dahlia?”
I won’t say it. I can’t. I can barely speak, my throat feels damaged and I cough.
I straighten up and that’s when the tears start to prick at my eyes. God damn it, I am so fucking sick of crying. I’m so sick of all of this, all of these lies.
I don’t care anymore.
Go ahead and tell him, I say to Lenore inside my head. Tell him what I am.
And she hears me too. She raises her brow as she looks at me, then turns her focus to Valtu. I brace for impact.
“Your girlfriend is a witch.”
Valtu’s hand doesn’t lift off my back, which I appreciate.
“What?” he whispers harshly. “She’s not a witch.”
“She’s got a glamor on, that’s why. She’s disguised herself using magic. She says her name really is Dahlia, but I don’t believe it. She was sent from the guild to kill you, Valtu.”
Valtu takes his hand away.
Oh no.
I slowly straighten up and the tears start running down my cheeks.
The minute he sees that, his expression collapses.
I can feel the pain, the confusion, the hurt that’s just starting to seep through him and it’s only going to get worse.
“Is this true?” he asks me, his jaw tense as he tries to keep his emotions in check. “Tell me this isn’t fucking true.”
I open my mouth to speak but I don’t know what to say.
“She’s a vampire slayer, Valtu,” Lenore goes on. “Corrupted by the guild just as my parents were. That’s the only reason she’s here in your life. To get close to you and drive the blade of mordernes into your heart.”
He shakes his head in disbelief, but I can tell from the way his eyes harden, the way I feel his pain as the truth settles in, that he knows it’s true. Maybe he’s always known it’s true.
Maybe that’s the reason he never loved me.
He knew I was poison.
“They came up with this whole backstory for her too,” Lenore goes on. “It’s like a play, you know, a game. She says that she’s your reincarnated loves. She said she’s Mina and Lucy.”
Solon makes a tsk of disappointment.
But Valtu.
He just fucking explodes.
Suddenly he’s at me and he’s pressing me up against the fridge now, but it’s not a windpipe to my neck, it’s his hand around my throat, and this time he aims to fucking kill me, his fingers squeezing me like a lemon.
“How dare you?” he cries out, spit flying as his hand crushes me further, the edges of my vision going gray. I reach up with my hands to pry his fingers off me but it’s no use.
This can’t be how it ends.
“How could you pretend, how could you do that to me?” he goes on, bringing his face right up to mine, and his pupils cycle between black and red and there’s a blood vessel in his forehead that I think might burst. “Why did you have to do it? Why did you have to pick on me?”
The anguish in his voice is breaking me into pieces.
But I’m also being broken by his grip.
I open my mouth but I can’t speak because I can’t breathe.
“Why me?” he says, his eyes watering, his whole body shaking as he raises his hand higher and higher until I’m being strangled, feet off the ground. “Did they tell you what to say, how to act? I bet you were a very apt pupil!”